December 1

Robert Pattinson in the forthcoming "Bel Ami"

The period costume drama “Bel Ami,” starring Robert Pattinson, Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Christina Ricci, will be released in 2011. The movie, which was filmed this year in Budapest (a stand-in for Paris), is based on the 1885 novel by Guy de Maupassant. The story chronicles journalist Georges Duroy's corrupt rise to power from a poor ex-soldier to one of the most successful men in Paris, which he achieves by manipulating a series of powerful, intelligent, and wealthy mistresses.

Writer de Maupassant was an astonishing sexual athlete. When fellow author Flaubert refused to believe de Maupassant’s claim that he could ejaculate six times in an hour, de Maupassant took him to a brothel and graphically proved his point, then further impressed Flaubert by claiming he could go on indefinitely. De Maupassant, who became wealthy from his writings, died in 1893 from complications of syphilis contracted in his youth. Guy de Maupassant penned his own epitaph: "I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing." He is buried in Section 26 of the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris.

But I digress.